The Exploding Rink #henderson 7/16/2017

DiscoDude: **---BEGIN SESSION---**
DiscoDude: **Session logging commenced**
Rila: (Describe our characters?)
Serea: It's late at night at a bar somewhere in Mew York. The three of us by random happenstance are gathered around the same table, with nothing to do with the evening but pass wild - and increasingly inebriated - tales of our exploits.
Serea: It's agreed: whoever tells the wildest tale pays the bill.
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Wait, isn't that a bad thing?)
Rila: (We agreed on that, because, we are drunk)
Serea: (ha ha ha XD)
Serea: (exactly)
Serea: Serea is a gray-furred flower rabbat in a black dress. Sometimes she fidgets with a pair of rather overlarge sewing needles.
Rila: _Rila is a tall manticore, clad in a leather cloak, her usual brash and abrasive demeanor admonished by alcohol, she is ready to tell tales that are **certainly true**._
Jean-Luc Psmith: Jean-Luc Psmith - *GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER EXTRAORDINAIRE* - is a rather large and rotund pigeon of cream colour, adorned in the standard attire of the alluring archeologist, khaki edition. He was the last to arrive, plopping himself down next to these unsavory mistresses, mistaking them for the Melina sisters who usually listened to his tales when-ever he came by, before quickly realizing his error made in drunken stupor; no bird worth his feathers could mistake them up close!
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Just realized a problem; nobody knows the rabbat behind the legend. XP)
Rila: (Huh? Is that a problem?)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (As in, how can I ask Serea for one of her stories if I don't know she has them?)
Rila: (Everybody is drunk, don't worry, it is like walking and talking)
Rila: (Your mouth moves on its own)
Serea: (yeah, let's assume Serea has let slip who and what she is and we'll all forget everything that was said here in the morning XD)
Jean-Luc Psmith: "I say- *hic*! - *You* were that shadow lady that had Mew York's scummy unduh- *BLIRP* - underbelly quaking in their pussy-boots? I say! I heard about how you sup- supposedly followed the entire Mandah- Mandible Gang into Teslic Yard an- an- and defeated them all single handed-lay! Issat true, m'lady?"
Rila: (We can just assume that some time has elapsed between sitting down and starting the tales, ya)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Asking Serea, BTW.)
Rila: (The prompt seems to be: You followed the entire mandible gang into the Teslic Yard, and defeated them all single-handedly)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (I'm thinking that we should aim for "Phoenix Write testimony segment" length chunks to make interruptions less clunky.)
Serea: (exactly)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Like, a sentence or two at a time. Maybe a whole paragraph, if it's describing one thing or action.)
Serea: "Well, I don't like to boast, but...yes, you could say that happened."
Serea: "The client was fairly ordinary. A girl who was being bothered by one of their toughs. All ego, no capacity to take 'no' for an answer."
Serea: "The job was pretty obvious: keep him from bothering her ever again." She twirls her needles meaningfully.
Serea: "Thing about a mark like that; they think they're invincible. They don't bother to check when they're obviously being shadowed. I could've been wearing bells and he'd never have noticed me."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "But wait; where is the rest of them, and how *did* you wind up in Teslic Yard?"
Serea: "I'm getting to that part!"
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Sorry if you were getting to that. XD)
Serea: "The other thing about a mark like that is that you end up so focused on their mistakes you don't notice your own."
Serea: "Namely, I followed him right into a warehouse full of fellow Mandible Gang thugs - the entire rest of the gang, from the look of it."
Serea: "If my reflexes were just the teensiest bit slower, I would've been spotted by the lot of them."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "I wasn't aware that they were based in the warehouse district. Wasn't there a major campaign to kick out all the lowlifes from there around that time?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Feel free to make your own objections, Rila.)
Rila: (I am well aware that I can interject at any time, just not having anything right now)
Serea: "They were the Mandible Gang. There were at least 20 of the cutthroats, maybe even 30. Law enforcement couldn't touch the place, and it was the last stronghold of the criminal element in the area anyway."
Serea: "Tough guys, but not bright ones, it turned out. Seemed they'd caught wind that Teslic Yard was home to something valuable. They had a plan, after a fashion: raid the labs and loot everything they could."
Serea: "I kept to the shadows, waiting for my opportunity to take out my mark, but the whole group was moving out, then and there. I had no choice but to *follow the entire Mandible Gang into Teslic Yard.*"
Rila: "Wait..."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "But isn't the actual location of Teslic Yard mostly unknown? How did these rapscalions know where to look? And isn't it rather deep in the Miaostok range? Must've been quite a treck."
Rila: "Uh... Besides that, I want to ask another thing..."
Serea: "I didn't say it was an easy trip. The bastards had a map on them, somehow. I had to keep up with them for *days.* Dressed like this, no less. I'm more of a 'get in, kill the target, get out' kind of operator."
Serea: "And go on, Rila?"
Rila: "Never crossed your mind, to just wait... When your mark was back?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "And why didn't you strike at some point along the way, if you were following all of them anyways?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Or - hell's bells! - at the warehouse?"
Serea: "I had to be sure. Teslic Yard, well, everyone knows that's a dangerous place. I had to see the mark dead, by my own hands, or I couldn't consider the job done. If he'd gone there, vanished, ended up presumed dead, only to come back weeks later...I'd be a laughingstock of an assassin."
Rila: "Hm, I see..."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Ah, so you were confirming his survival so that you might find him at a later date? But then, that's not how things wound up, is it?"
Serea: "I'm getting to that part, I'm getting to it! Sheesh..."
Serea: "So I went there, trailing them every step. The place seemed pretty deserted when we arrived. I could *smell* the danger. The Mandible Gang, being idiots, saw an unguarded treasure trove and marched towards the nearest building."
Serea: "I couldn't believe my luck when my mark lagged behind the pack. Instinct kicked in. I leapt in, skewered his skull" - she mimes the motion with her needles, likely the actual ones that did the deed - "and I thought, 'mission accomplished.'"
Serea: "How wrong I was."
Serea: "One of them turned back just in time to see me dispatch his comrade. A second sooner or later and he'd have only seen shadows. At any rate, I was blown and in seconds I had the whole Gang after me."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Ah, however, I heard that the gang was comprised entirely of Manticores. Surely, approaching one from behind was dangerous?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Ah, too slow...)
Serea: "That's the funny thing. He was actually walking *away* from the group, like he'd chickened out at the last second. A deadly mistake on his part - he was walking straight towards his demise."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "But then they saw you, and then...?"
Serea: "So I didn't fancy my chances trying to outrun the entire Mandible Gang all the way back through the mountains. Finding cover seemed my best bet."
Serea: "I dodged the first one, jumped on top of a second, and used their big thick skulls like stepping stones all the way to the very same door they were trying to open."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "I'm sure you'd garnered the attention of the local wildlife by then?"
Serea: "Like I said, the whole place was weirdly silent. That's gonna be important in a second."
Serea: "The door was locked with a keypad, but fortunately I seem to have a knack for those." She grins and twirls her needle. "A jab in the right place, a shower of sparks, and I was in business."
Serea: "As quick as a flash, I was through the door and had it shut behind me."
Serea: "And that's when things got *weird.*"
Serea: "Obviously they started banging on the door, yelling trite things like 'let us in!' Angrily at first, then...panicked, for some reason? I don't know what was going on out there. I still can't guess. The banging stopped, and I...well, I waited a bit longer before I opened the door again."
Jean-Luc Psmith: (I realize that I should refrain from interrupting unless I think it'd be actually *interesting*.)
Serea: "They were gone. Like. There was no trace of them. Not footprints, not bloodstains, not even the body of the goon I'd killed."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "But surely, that isn't how you took them all out with your own two hands? Did you encounter them later?"
Serea: "There was no way they'd cleaned up where they'd been that thoroughly between me closing the door and opening it up again."
Serea: "So I went back to Mew York. There was no sign of the Mandible Gang coming back from wherever they went. I could only draw one conclusion: something about that place eradicated them completely."
Serea: "And the only safe place was indoors, so..."
Serea: She smirks. "You could say I defeated them all. Just by shutting a door in their faces."
Rila: "With a single move..."
Rila: "How..."
Rila: "Underwhelming. But effective."
Rila: _Rila takes a swig from her drink._
Serea: "One of my weirder kills, to be sure. I've taken out a man with a door before, but never 27."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Well that was... anticlimactic." He chuckled. "I'm surprised you didn't have to fight the urge to touch something electric and wriggling whilst there. I've heard stories of that."
Jean-Luc Psmith: (You know what I'm referring to, right?)
Serea: (amphilia, yes)
Serea: ("The allure of deadly electricity")
Serea: "You're up next, Rila. Tell us about that time..." She takes a swig of her own drink. "That time you were hired to clean a bathroom, and ended up saving all of Southwestern Owel from unspeakable terror."
Jean-Luc Psmith: *Psmith's feathers ruffled; he's heard of something like that, but surely she's exaggerating on the scale?*
Jean-Luc Psmith: *A city, he might find plausible in this case, but...*
Rila: "Cleaning bathrooms is not usually my job- Well, not anymore, that is -But there was a time, back in the day, that I was not such an estabillished travelling arms dealer, and as such, had to take jobs here and there to live by..."
Rila: "Now, that was in a time that I had already started travelling abroad, but was yet to find my true vocation. And, I'll tell ya, I had to take jobs in those stops you find when travelling really long lengths... Because I was bad at planning, back in the day."
Jean-Luc Psmith: ("Planning" was right the first time.)
Rila: (Actually, the last n was missing, so, not really)
Jean-Luc Psmith: "A resting town? Where was this?"
Rila: "More like a single building. Like a hotel, restaurant, stable and fueling post... All in one, except with only the worst attributes of each stabilishments."
Rila: "I can't pinpoint you in the map, correctly, but if you travel enough times to the Southwestern Owel area, you might just find it... Not that you'd want to find that wretched place."
Rila: "The rented rooms had mattresses as hard as bricks, the food was stale and was always either overcooked or raw, the fuel was absolutely watered down, the stables smelled like bathrooms, and the bathroom of the place always had a 'brick' on it that, on itself, could be called an unspeakable terror."
Rila: "By the way. They had only one bathroom."
Rila: "So, there's that."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "'Brick'?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: ("The stables smelled like a bathroom, and the bathroom smelled like stables." XD)
Rila: "Of course, let me put it into better words." Rila said, leaning foward "Shit, manure, brown clay, cigar, brown bombers, brownies, fecal loaf, smelly log... Should I go on?"
Serea: "No, that's fine, we get the picture."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "... On the floor?" He didn't mean to say it out loud; he was mostly saying it to himself out of morbid fascination.
Jean-Luc Psmith: (I mean, if it was where it belonged, you could simply flush it, so... XD)
Rila: "More often than not, no. But that was only marginally better, giving the conditions that the fecal mass was usually in. Of course, when there was a log floating in the lake, it was signal that trying to flush it was pointless in ninety-nine times out of a hundred."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Hence, what you were hired for."
Rila: "Regrettably, yes. Not my only duty, but the most common one."
Rila: "I was the new girl in there. So, I always got the worse assignment avaiable."
Rila: "That included cleaning the stables. Which was better than the single bathroom. yes, the whole stable was better than the bathroom. Every. Single. Time."
Rila: "Anyways, little did I know, after a few weeks working there."
Rila: "Well, it seemed *years*, but that's besides the point."
Rila: "Little did I know, was that the owner, was mixed with the dark arts."
Rila: "Because, of course, you can't make enough money by being a bad business? Why not turn to the dark arts, so you can sink yourself in the mud more?"
Serea: ("WHAT KIND OF MONSTERS WOULD RUN A PLACE LIKE THIS?!?" "Dark wizards, apparently.")
Rila: (Of course XD)
Rila: "So, it's been some time, with me having to deal with this hellish bathroom. What I decided, one day, was to wake up in the middle of the night, so I could check why the toilet was always clogged by the morning. After all, there *has* to be something doing that."
Rila: "I assumed at first, in my first few days at the place, *that charged me more than my salary could pay*." She punctuated that with a cough "It was just someone that was spending the night, going to have some terrible poop in the bathroom, and clogging it."
Rila: "As the days passed, I became more and more convinced that it was a member of the staff, because it was *consistent*"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Toilets often aren't built with unusual size in consideration, no. We're there any plus-sized members of staff there?"
Serea: (i feel compelled to apologize because I forgot Rila's arms dealer thing; I was remembering the aftermath of "The Ice" and assuming she was stuck doing odd jobs XD)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Like Gnolls or Bastians.)
Serea: (still, this is...pretty much as wacky as I was hoping it'd go XD)
Rila: (That was literally another different character)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Yeah, that wasn't even Rila you're thinking of. XD)
Serea: (yeah, I remember Rila now from the Dream Dungeon game)
Serea: (mah bad)
Serea: (still - good times, this XD)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Do Bearrings count as large? I'm thinking no?)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (But Commons Foxes do count.)
Serea: ("normal" bearrings, no, I don't think so)
Rila: "Hm... There was a plus-sized member of the staff there. **Me**. Also, someone else too, not sure. Most of the staff wasn't particularly *me*-sized."
Jean-Luc Psmith: (There goes my idea for you introducing another character...)
Rila: "Anyways, I made my plan to catch them red-handed. I would check the toilets in the night, every two hours, I knew that would make me work really bad in the next day, but hey, at least it was my best shot at catching someone doing the dirty deed. Like, literally dirty."
Rila: "So. It just happened that, at the strike of midnight, which was like what... My third, fourth attempt during that night, at catching the Clogger of the Night..."
Rila: "I come to a scene which is pretty much a thing you would only expect in a terror film."
Rila: "I am pretty sure that the circle that the owner was standing inside was made from... What? THE GUTS OF AT LEAST THREE CLIENTS?! LIKE, **WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?!**"
Rila: "I squinted at he scene, because, why not? I had to clean that bathroom every morning, yet there never was blood in there before. Also, I was very tired, so I wasn't thinking properly."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Use your words, Rila. Admittedly, I'd never heard of any dark ritual that actually used entrails in the physical circle outside of B-rated horror flicks."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "And you might consider me an aficionado of the occult, among other things."
Rila: "Well. I am not that great in the dark arts myself, but, if what you say is true, then he probably had done *actual* dark rituals in other times of the day, or week, and he was just doing that for the *kicks*, which is disgusting."
Rila: "Specially disgusting, because..."
Rila: "he suddenly oppened his eyes and said yo me: 'You came to lay your feces, but after this, you shall shit no more!' and then the door closed behind me, on its own. I was obviously terrified, but also disgusted at the implication."
Jean-Luc Psmith: (*What.* XD)
Rila: "He obviously was ambushing people who were holding the *number two* and killing them before they had a chance to do the deed."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Are you sure he was doing legitimate rituals, and was not just..." He circles his talon around his ear in the "cuckoo" motion.
Rila: "Well, just hear..."
Serea: _hasn't taken a sip for the past several minutes. She's listening to the story with what might be either rapt fascination or mute horror._
Rila: "And like this, the body parts strewn about the place, rose to life and tried to kill me. I, of course, was having none of it. I picked up a cleaver that was scattered about, and started cutting down any and every arm or assorted limb that crawled on my direction. It was rather hard to do it in the darkness, but, luckly, it was a full moon, and the cold winter had the snow outside shine the moonlight into the room. So, it was *doable*."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Hold!"
Rila: "What?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Does the full moon not nullify blood magic? Or was it amplify?"
Rila: "Is this the face of someone who cares and, or, understands magic? Blood magic, dark arts, necromancy, poltergheists, telecnesis. I don't fucking know how he did it. But he *did it*."
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Kinda sounds like you're hand-waving.)
Serea: (I think it's legit possible Rila wouldn't know XD)
Rila: (I am sorry, Rila is kinda not strong with magic)
Rila: (She has *guns*, you know?)
Rila: (That uses actual gunpowder)
Rila: "Anyways, as I finished with every single body part thown in my direction, the owner of the place had that expression of surprise, and the words barely left his mouth: 'how did you-' He managed, before I cut him, verbally: 'I work here, unclogging this goddamn toilet every morning, and through the day.' I said, before actually cutting him down, with my cleaver. I am pretty sure that was the first time I actually killed someone, and if I weren't as sleep-deprived, I would have been more shocked."
Rila: "His last words were him exposing his plans to conquer Owel... With the dead? I don't know, I was sleep deprived, I only remember being sleep deprived, and angry because of all the... Urgh..."
Rila: "All the *shit, in the toilet*."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Hold again!"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Where did the cleaver come from, exactly? You're in a bathroom."
Serea: "Good question."
Rila: "What did he cut the bodies with, **his bare hands?!**"
Serea: "Good answer."
Rila: "There were knifes and machetes and cleavers strewn about!"
Rila: "Anyways..."
Rila: "I think he found it ironically-funny to squeeze all the contents of the intestines in the toilet. In some kind of post-morten poop of irony... I flushed the toilet one last time. Not clogged. Then I realized I killed my boss, and that I was likely out of a job, also, the police might decide to arrest me. So during the night, I picked my things and I left."
Rila: "Now."
Serea: "...That was incredible."
Serea: _looks at Psmith._
Serea: "You've got a tough act to follow here."
Rila: "Wether the unspeakable horror was this *appaling* stabillishment, wether it was the **GODDAMN BATHROOM AND ITS TOILET**, wether it was this serial-killing *motherfucker*, wether it was an army of the dead, marching to kill the living... You can bet."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Pah! Childs' play. Would barely register as a footnote in the tales of Jean-Luc Psmith; *GENTLEMAN ADVENTURER EXTRAORDINAIRE!*"
Rila: "I stopped it."
Jean-Luc Psmith: (Preferred genre for this character; campy pulp-fiction adventure; exploration, treasure, fighting Nazis, *romance*...)
Serea: (Do it, Rila. Throw him a curve.)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (What?)
Serea: (I'm kidding, I'm kidding~)
Rila: "Anyways. Speaking of following the act... Did you once mention, Jean, that you once managed to follow the tracks of a relic... To a mafia-controlled theatre?"
Serea: (a what?)
Rila: (You know)
Rila: (Where plays happen)
Jean-Luc Psmith: (*Theatre.)
Serea: (yeah)
Rila: (Sorry 'bout that)
Rila: (I hope that at least my act pun came through)
Jean-Luc Psmith: "... So! You want to hear the adventure of the Manaostok Icon? Good choice! It's the Selina Sisters' favorite, as it's where I met them, actually! Again, sorry about the little bout of mistaken identity, ladies."
Rila: "I am too drunk to care, so... no problem."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "So... Where to begin... Yes, I suppose I should start with how I came about the Icon's location. Or perhaps what the Icon is, to begin with?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: Without even waiting for them to answer: "The latter, then! The Manaostok Icon can best be explained by stating that the state of Miaostok was once ruled by the Manaostoks, a ruling family that, while prosperous for a while, eventually fell primarily to inbreeding and mental instability, of all things!" (Think Prussia or Austria.)
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Now, the Icon itself was said to be a beautiful emblem of the Manaostok family crest; gilded in gold, shield of polished ivory in the center with the Manaostok coat of arms; a three-headed dragon!"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "As for what led me to believe it would be found in a Mew York theatre, of all places... Well, to be precise, it wasn't originally a Mew York theatre; once upon a time, it was a theatre of *Old Kadath*."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "So you see how the dates line up? How I deduced it would be hidden there as part of the backdrop for the play 'Hastur' started with a drawing of the play's performance featuring it in a 'court' scene, despite it being the old Arorian monarchy it takes place in, not Miaostok, and ended with me unraveling a tragic love story. But I won't get into the details of that; all of that story's players are long dead, besides."
Rila: "Wait."
Rila: "How did they die, exactly?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "As in, they are all several centuries passed."
Rila: "Right."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "The cause does not matter."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "What matters is that I believed that the Icon was hidden in backdrop set of an old play at this theatre. As it turns out, it was still operational!"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "But to both my fortune and dismay, it was owned by none other than Chef Antonio Pawe, rumoured to be one of Mew York's most notorious crime families."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Fortune, in that unscrupulous behavior was less likely to be investigated - and at that point getting the Icon would very well require at least some amount of skullduggery - but dismay, in that getting caught in the act would lead to infinite regret at the paws of the Pawe, as you could imagine!"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Now, I was known by all as a patron of the arts, so 'twas not unusual for me to approach Antonio personally to fund a production of Goetia's Arcana plays. I wouldn't even have to wait long, as 'Hastur' was the second of twenty-two."
Rila: "Wait..."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Mm, yes?"
Rila: "But Didn't Antonio use someone as a 'puppet', per se, pretending to not be the real owner of the theatre?"
Rila: (I forgot the real term)
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Ah, yes indeed, there was a production manager, but you see, I had to attend a meeting with his 'investors' to get 'greenlit' as the youngsters say. Antonio was present, and made hardly any illusions of not being the real cat in charge. It was actually how I found out he owned the place!"
Rila: "Ah, I see..."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Moving on, I decided to familiarize myself with the players of the coming tragedies and comedies and dramas, and... ah yes, this is where you enter the story, my sweets."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "... Erm, rather, that's where I'd say 'ah yes, this is where you come in, my sweets' to the Selina Sisters, anyways."
Serea: _chuckles._
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Since among the other actors... there was these two. With forms so slender and flexible and smooth, even by cat standards, they'd be striking beauties... well, if not for the matter of them being conjoined twins."
Rila: "Were those the Selina Sisters?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Indeed. Still, that worked in my favor, as I loved them - and still love them - like no one else would. With a glamour spell to make them more Aurorian and lupine, they were to play King Hastur's advisors of the same affliction, the Wierd Sisters."
Rila: _Rila moves her seat a little bit further away from Serea, now counscious of how close they've been seating together._
Serea: _does the same._
Serea: ( http://www.hrwiki.org/w/images/7/73/Geddupnoise.ogg )
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Of course, we grew close, and were even sharing a romantic evening together, when we were attacked!"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Apparently Marquis - a dastardly rival! - was also after the Icon, and wished harm upon the Sisters. I would learn later that he was in league with a group of kingsmen who didn't like the idea of the Manaostok kingship returning to power."
Jean-Luc Psmith: (I'm getting tired... How to wrap this up...)
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Ah, I feel myself getting light-headed. Let's expedite things. I shall skip ahead to the night of the play, after discovering documents (which Marquis was also after) which detailed a line of heritage to a mentally deranged woman that was revealed to be the Sisters' mother!"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "As the backdrops were set in place, my opportunity to procure the Icon arrived! As the 'court' backdrop lowered, then rose at the end of the scene, I made my way up to the rafters above the stage, where I could access the backdrops not currently in use."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "But as I was about to remove the Icon, I was suddenly confronted by none other than Marquis! At the same time, we were both discovered by one of Antonio's thugs; how glad I was that I was not recognized in the darkness up there, or else I wouldn't be able to remain in the area safely!
Jean-Luc Psmith: "It was a three way duel! Marquis armed with a sword, myself with only my fists and a concealed flintlock, and the thug without even the flintlock."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "But it was over quickly; with a carefully timed throw, the thug wound up on top of Marquis! I made off with the Icon then, leaving it in a van parked out back - a necessary evil, those horrid vehicles - before returning to my seat as if nothing had happened, just in time for the lights to come on for intermission."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Apparently, Marquis had done in the poor thug, and was attempting to accuse me of wrongdoing when he himself was apprehended for being covered in the victim's blood."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "So that was the Sisters safe; they never even wanted the throne, and that position was dissolved anyways."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "I ended up donating the Icon to a museum in Gnawth - Mew York and Miaostok itself were too close to the revisionists' sphere of influence to leave in good conscience - and after burning the documents with them, I sent the Sisters away to the Twin Luxuries while things cooled off."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "And all in all, that is how I liberated the Manaostok Icon. What do think of this admittedly abridged retelling?"
Serea: "Well that was a wild adventure," Serea says with a drunken smile.
Serea: "What do you think, <@!Rila>?"
Rila: "Mhm, pretty good."
Serea: "So. All the stories are told. Time to hold it to a vote. Now...let's keep things fair, and reveal our votes at the same time, all right?"
Serea: "First, everybody pick, but *don't say yet.*"
Rila: "Okay."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Picked and ready, dears."
Serea: "Now." She sets a small clock on the table. "When this goes off in 15 seconds, we all reveal simultaneously, okay?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "And to be clear, we cannot select our own?"
Serea: "Right. Now, here goes..."
Serea: !timer 15
DiscoDude: Timer set for 15 seconds (0:15).
Rila: "No, not our own"
DiscoDude: **DING DING DING!**
Serea: "Rila!"
Rila: "I vote Psmith."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Rila."
Serea: "Welp. Rila, it looks like you're tonight's lucky winner. Drinks're on you! Hey, hey, barkeep! Another round for the table!"
Rila: "Yesh! I did it- Wait, what?"
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Did... Did my tale bore you?"
Serea: "Nah, it wasn't *boring*; far from it! But...I did kinda lose the thread of it? I'll admit mine had a lot of room for improvement, though."
Rila: "Hey, I voted for you, for whatever is worth."
Jean-Luc Psmith: "Ah, but yours was fairly well-paced, just not... exciting? It was missing that 'pizazz'. I'll admit my story was *heavily* abridged, as- ah, there we go. Good nighhhhh~" Psmith collapses from exhaustion and drunkenness.
Serea: "Hey, come on, we could go another round! Oh, hey, here are the drinks! Thanks, friend!" She takes a sip of hers...and immediately keels over unconscious.
Serea: (last line, Rila? XD)
Rila: _Rila silently pays for the drinks, stands up, and goes home._
Serea: !end